Multirate scheduling of VBR video traffic in ATM networks

Abstract

One of the major attractions of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks for transporting bursty video traffic is its ability to exploit the multiplexing gains of packet switching while providing quality of service guarantees. Unfortunately, most of the multiplexing mechanisms proposed in the literature fail to exploit the multiplexing gains of ATM. In this paper, we propose a multirate service mechanism that allows a session to be served at different rates at different times. Applications generating bursty data, such as variable bit-rate (VBR) video, can take advantage of multirate service by requesting a high rate of service for brief periods of bursty arrivals and a much lower rate of service for all other times. Consequently, the applications can improve their delay performance without reserving a high bandwidth for the entire duration of the sessions. Furthermore, the scheduler can multiplex the peaks and the lulls in service rates of different sessions and improve the utilization of the system. Using MPEG video traces from a number of applications, we show that multirate servers outperform single-rate PGPS (packet-by-packet generalized processor sharing) servers and CBR (constant bit-rate) servers in terms of number of connections admitted, while providing the same level of service guarantees. We also investigate the performance of multirate service when service quality need not be guaranteed. We refer to this as predictive service. We propose a measurement-based admission control procedure for predictive service, and show that it helps increase the size of the admissible region even further.